Looking beyond the Afghan dead end

1:45 PM,
Oct. 5, 2012

Written by

David Ignatius

WASHINGTON -- While the overlooked war in Afghanistan grinds on, a group of officials in Washington, Kabul and Islamabad are exploring a bare-bones strategy that would narrow each side's demands to a set of minimum conditions for escaping the current diplomatic dead end.

The aim is to create a pathway for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from a war that almost nobody sees as "winnable" by military force alone. The goal is a framework for political transition where each side's demands are boiled down to the irreducible essentials -- providing a better deal for each party than they could ...